When scores of ballot boxes were recently examined as part of the Zimbabwean elections, it was discovered that seals had been tampered with. So shocking was this discovery that the international media felt compelled to report upon it. The following story, from the Daily Telegraph of April 21st, described the situation as:-

“Zimbabwe’s regime has been accused of a “concerted effort” to rig the election for Robert Mugabe as it emerged that seals protecting ballot boxes have been broken.

A partial recount of the election – which was held on March 29 – is now taking place in 23 constituencies. A source at the recount at the Bulilima East constituency said: “There are 57 ballot boxes from 57 polling stations. We examined all the boxes from the presidential election and the seal on every one is slit. There is a foreign observer here so we hope this has been noted.”

The seals guard the keys to the padlocks on the boxes, which contain all the voting materials from a polling station, including the voters’ roll and ballot papers.”

Yet when large numbers of London Mayoral/Assembly ballot boxes were brought from supposedly secure overnight storage in the various counting centres on Friday morning, they were found to have had their seals broken! Worryingly, there was no media outcry – not even a media whimper! Despite formal complaints being made to the proper electoral authority, not a single media outlet reported on what many perceive to be massive and organised ballot box tampering – presumably because the most likely target of said suspected vote tampering or “ballot box stuffing”, would be the BNP!

Indeed, without media comment, some 400,000 ballot sips were subsequently officially declared as “spoilt”! Are we really supposed to believe that there are hundreds of thousands of Londoners unable to complete ballot forms correctly? We can only wonder what forensic examination of these “spoilt” ballot slips would reveal?

And why is it that whilst the electoral authorities in Zimbabwe managed to provide steel or moulded plastic ballot boxes, secured with padlocks, that the best the Labour regime could provide were tamper-friendly cardboard boxes and paper seals?